Performance analysis of radio standard spanning communication in mobile Ad Hoc networks

In this paper, the feasibility and necessity of a new concept for radio standard spanning communication in mobile Ad Hoc networks (MANET) has been analysed. Past research approaches limited their solutions to the usage in a homogeneous topology on basis of a unique radio standard. The proposed concept offers the possibility to connect standardised radio modules on a hardware near layer by the usage of a dedicated Interface Block. Such an IFB allows the interoperability between tasks with incompatible protocols. For evaluating the conceptual advantages of this approach, different network topologies have been tested in a dedicated simulation environment. The scenario-based performance analysis includes the behaviour of the nodes both in static and in high-dynamic network topologies. Thereby, the main objective of verification is a qualitative evaluation of the power consumption in each node and in the entire topology. Furthermore, improvements of route paths and the connectivity level have been analysed. The degree of improvements in the analysed scenarios averages 15% and rises up to 35% in a random distributed, heterogeneous network topology with a high node density.